Flying good times

I am always into aircraft 'incidents'. If you're a nervous flier, you probably won't like Air Disaster dot com. I personally like flying. Sit me in a window seat and I'll be amused for hours. For example, on my flight last night I watched the spectacular moon-rise over the California coastal mountains flying from SNA to SEA. It began as a huge bright orange globe that morphed into a smaller bone white disc once it broke away from the horizon of the desert peaks. It made the 45 minute delay worth it, just so I could catch those moments in the air. I take it as the universe's blessing of my trip to visit my sweetie here in Seattle.

Here's a quick loop of a plane in Japan being struck by lightening during take-off. Lightening is generally harmless to planes, but the bang is certain to cause a few bladders to release.

Thanks to Gizmodo for posting the link.

You think that Canadian are smiles, beer and hockey, eh?

Well you are wrong my friend.

Not only is the great northern menace trying to lay claim to the Canadian Arctic (buggers even named it after themselves) by planting flags and stranding Inuit peoples to starve on Canadian claimed territories, but they are now infiltrating the very foundations of American higher education.

Today in the Chronicle of Higher Education (that venerable rag), there was a story about how Canadian propagandists are reworking the primary source of knowledge for American high school and university students (and maybe a few professors as well). In the Wired Campus edition, it was noted that 11,000 -that's right, eleven thousand - entries of the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, had been edited by Canadians. Not just any Canadians, rightfully-fearful readers, but Canadians with ip addresses that are tied to Canadian government computers.

No doubt, now-terrified readers, you are wondering how Canadian propagandists are changing the great forge of American knowledge from which so many of my students see as the only font of information around. Will Canadians be smugly changing entries so that American youth question the evils of socialized medicine, multilingualism and a reasonable immigration system?

It doesn't appear that that is the case just yet. As we read in the Chronicle article:

Despite Wikipedia’s monitoring, one user with an Internet-protocol address at the House of Commons repeatedly removed material from the encyclopedia’s entry on homosexuality, replacing it 24 times with terse statements like “Homosexuality is evil.”

Huh...

I admit I was a bit perplexed at this tact by the Canadian Politburo. At first I thought that this surely must be what Albertan patronage appointments must do in Ottawa for kicks; having neither the wherewithal to do anything useful with themselves, nor the ability to break through the neocolonial powers of central Canadian politics. But what I think is really going on is this: these edits in Wikipedia are part of a grand conspiracy of Canadian professional bureaucrats to further the right-wing agenda of the American social conservative movement, thereby leveraging Canada's warm and fuzzy reputation in the world as a bastion of weak-socialist liberalism. Upon successfully distracting/lulling the world, that's when they will spring forth in their black helicopters and begin the True North One World Government.

Very clever, vile canucks... very clever indeed.

Ulitimate fighting, gym monkeys and the new 'gay' generation.

ooh, Friday night and I am home alone blogging.

This long distance relationship thing sucks.

Hmmm, well, there's always the distraction of mixed martial arts (Pride, UFC, IFL to name three of them) - basic cable swims in soft-core homo-erotica. Long time readers will know my appreciation for UFC as a celebration of blurring male sexualities. Is it straight or gay content? Who knows? Seriously, dear readers, it doesn't take but 15 minutes of watching any of the mixed martial arts shows to see that the target audience of these shows is men and those who like them. The commentary and the associated adverts promote toughness and ideals of masculinity. Interstingly enough, these ideals of masculinity include hours of watching buff men burying their faces into other men's chests and armpits while grappling on the floor sweating with arms and legs intertwined. Then, there's hugging and kissing at the end. The ancient Greeks would have been very familiar with these activities. The uncanny thing about these lads of the new mixed martial arts generation is that they are almost all pretty boys - not the usual denizens of traditional boxing gyms, let alone the questionable circles that started no-rules fighting. The old days of glorified bum-fights in bars have been eclipsed by highly staged (however authentic the fighting may be) events that highlight these very well groomed and very suspiciously attractive young men. Take a look if you don't believe me.

As an aside, there are also the (almost as) homoerotic biblical retellings on evangelical tv channels. Right now, for example, between MMA commercials i stumbled across a presentation of the biblical Joseph in Egypt after being sold by his brothers. There was a long scene of Joseph showering (SLOWLY!), the director choosing to emphasize the lad's very tanned, very smooth, very muscular young body. His body was also clearly oiled up like he was heading out to a Venice Beach muscle show. Who knew that the early Hebrews in Egypt were actually refugees from the Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue? Not sure how the Hebrews sprung out of the midwest, but I guess that's what good Christian dogma dictates these days.

M'eh, I'll switch over to the woofy bear goodness of Canada's Les Stroud (a.k.a. Survivorman on Discovery Channel) in his undies as he negotiates a rain forest. Gotta love the nipple-cam shots that he seems to be fond of when filming himself. Sweet Jebus on a pogo stick, there is a lot of male flesh on television these days.

But, speaking of the drawbacks of a long distance relationship, I have been working out my frustrations by hitting the gym. It's been a very long time since I've been on a campus gym. The recreational center where I go to is fascinating. The behavior of undergraduates in gyms is very different from people in public gyms elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, dear reader, I ain't leering at the twinks. 8 years of teaching the 20 somethings has made them completely non-interesting to me. What DOES interest me though, is the un-selfconscious preening and visual masturbations that many young men are so fond of doing.

For example, a couple of days ago there was one young fella who was making gawd-awful noises as he was lifting 100 lb weights for tricep lifts. Certainly a desparate cry for attention rather than uncontrolled groans of exertion. But it was between sets where the Jane Goodall/Diane Fossey in me perked up. The lad dropped his weight more dramatically than any drag queen could drop her purse before diving for that last pair of size 12 factory outlet Jimmy Choos. He then strutted over to a mirror and did an approving inspection of his arms. Then he lifted his tank top, pinning it under his chin, while he swayed back and forth staring at and running his fingers up and down his abs.

Fascinating.

I can't say I ever saw that at my undergraduate and graduate school gyms. It was like he was having a very public self-sexual moment in a space filled with several other guys participating in similar activities. It was kinda odd to be in this room filled with people participating in an orgy of mutual masurbation where no one looked at each other directly, but were all connected through the reflections on the mirror covered walls.

I figure that all the mixed martial arts on TV along with the rest of the packaging of the male body on TV is yet another marker of recent shifts in American sexuality. The hypersexualization of youth (even to the mass hysteria surrounding anything that might smack of pedophilia) has crossed the gender divide. It appears that the youngins nowadays are being socialized to now think of men as sexual objects, even onto themselves. Aside from the evils of objectification of people, this shift could result in good things if the concrete walls between straight and gay male sexuality become much more porous. The optimist in me hopes so; the deconstruction of these artificial sexualities that have allowed for so much discrimination and marginalization would bring about real change in the world. The pessimist in me worries that we'll see the incorporation of gay men into the hierarchy of straight male sexual gratification. Just as lesbians have been appropriated into the circle of heteromale fantasy, so too could gay men become objects for gratification. Mind you, that's not too different from how gay men treat each other now.

Ah well, at least the dating pool will increase...

I slept through my first earthquake.

We had a 4.5 quake in LA, the first time I visit the town. It occured around 1AM, well after my bedtime.

Damn.

I was at a workshop/conference at UCLA during the week. Quite a pretty campus. Looking at the buildings, it looks like the campus heyday was about 40 years ago. Sure, there has been change, but the architecture of many buildings bears a certain late mid-20th Century essence about them. There's the industrial scientific confidence of the 50's space-age romanticism tempered by the awkward expressions of clunky 60's funk. Don't get me wrong, the place has its charms. The view of the hills on the other side of campus is stunning. I took a stroll around campus just after sunrise, the cool air made for a pleasant walk over the long shadows settling on the quad. About at the end of my walk, I came across this commemoration piece for Duke Ellington in front of the Music Dept. There ought to be more art installations like this.

Artifacts of appreciation are too rare.


After the first night of the conference, I stayed at a motel in Brentwood after being unceremoniously bumped from the hotel in which I had originally booked a room. It turned out for the best, I figured. The place was funky and quiet and was in a much nicer space than the place I had booked on Wilshire. The shower had a 'champagne' setting so that the streams of water were foamy and thick. Very classy, no? If Norma Jean were around, she would have said it was 'swellegant', a term coined in her film (and my favorite) The Seven Year Itch.


Also, some lovely Los Angelino cut a 1/2 foot gash on the side of my truck. Thank you very much, whoever you are (it's a very high scratch, so I am thinking semi-truck or Hummer). I'll keep you fondly in my heart for adding your special touch to the one thing of value I own.